Most advice about rebuilding assumes a job. For a great many Nigerian women a trade is the more realistic route, and sometimes the better one: it starts sooner, it fits around children, it does not require a reference for a six-year gap, and nobody asks why you left your last position.
It is also harder than it looks, and it is where women lose the small amount of money they managed to keep. This is an honest account of both.
Whether it is right for you
Be straight with yourself about this rather than choosing trade because employment feels closed.
Trade suits you if you have done it before, you have a skill people already pay for, your hours have to bend around school runs and court dates, or you genuinely cannot get an employer to look at you yet.
A job suits you better if you need money reliably every month, you have no capital to risk, your situation is still unstable, or you need what a contract brings — a payslip that proves income to a landlord, and the possibility of an employer standing as guarantor.
Many women do both, starting with a job for the income and building a trade alongside it. That is slower and considerably safer than putting everything into a business in the first three months.
The mistakes that cost the first six months
- Starting too big. Renting a shop before you know whether anybody buys. Start from home, from a table, from a friend’s counter, and take the shop when the trade already exists.
- Buying too much stock. Money tied up in goods that are not moving is the commonest way capital disappears, and it is invisible because it still looks like wealth.
- Not separating the money. Trading money and household money in the same purse means the business is eaten by the household within weeks, and nobody notices until it is gone.
- Selling on credit to relatives. Very hard to refuse and it is the second commonest way a small trade fails.
- Not knowing the actual cost. Including transport, packaging, and the goods that spoil or break. A price that ignores those is a loss.
- Following somebody else’s success. The fact that a trade worked for a woman in another market says nothing about whether that market needs another one.
Starting small deliberately
The first question is not what to sell. It is what you can already do, and who near you already pays for it.
Then test it before committing anything. One week of small quantities tells you what people actually buy rather than what you assumed. Selling out of a small amount is information. Not selling a large amount is an expensive way to learn the same thing.
Keep the first version of the business small enough that failing costs you a week rather than a year. Most successful small traders did not begin with a plan; they began with something that sold and then did more of it.
Protecting the capital
This part is specific to your situation and it matters more than any business advice.
- A separate account for the trade. Not the household account, and not one anybody else can see. How to set one up safely applies here.
- Pay yourself a fixed amount from the takings, weekly, and leave the rest in the business. Taking whatever is in the tin is how capital vanishes.
- Write down what comes in and goes out. One notebook. This is what tells you whether you are actually making money, which is not the same as having money in your hand.
- Do not register or advertise at an address that matters if you are keeping a location private. Use a pickup point, and see what a business account gives away.
- Do not put it in anybody else’s name, for tax, for convenience, or because a relative offered. This is how women lose businesses they built.
- Be careful who knows what a good month looked like. Where his family or yours is still in contact, a successful trade becomes a claim.
Capital, and where not to get it
Most small trades start with very little, and less than people imagine.
Sources worth considering: your own savings, however small; a workplace or market cooperative, which is usually the safest borrowing available; a government or NGO scheme, which are real though slow; and us, where a small amount of start-up support is part of the work and income programme.
Sources to be careful of: the lending apps that pay out in minutes, which charge very heavily and some of which harass borrowers by messaging every contact in their phone — a serious safety problem if you are keeping an address private. Also money from family that comes with conditions about your marriage, which is a debt of a different kind.
Do not borrow for stock until you know the stock sells. Borrowing to expand something that works is reasonable. Borrowing to start something untested is how people end up worse off than when they had nothing.
Ajo, esusu and cooperatives
These are how a great many traders actually save and access lump sums, and they work.
Choose the group carefully, since you are relying on people and on a collector. Avoid any group with his relatives in it. A market association or a workplace cooperative is generally the safest version, and membership of a market association brings other things — information, a voice in disputes, and people who notice if you stop appearing.
The things nobody mentions
You will be tested. A woman trading alone is approached by people who assume she can be pushed on price, on space, or on payment. Being polite and immovable from the first week costs far less than trying to correct it later.
Confidence is the real obstacle. Years of being told you are useless does not disappear because you have a table and some goods. Pricing your own work is where it shows most, and women in this position systematically undercharge. Find out what others charge and charge that.
It is lonely. Which is one of several reasons a market association or a group of traders matters more than it appears to.
Some months are bad. That is trade, not failure. The women who survive it are the ones who kept enough aside during the good months, which is the whole argument for separating the money physically.
What we can help with
Start-up capital in small amounts, tools and equipment, training where a skill needs upgrading, and a place on a market association where that opens doors.
We can also connect you to organisations that buy services — several of our partner employers would rather contract a supplier than employ somebody, and that suits some women considerably better. Work and income covers this, and it is deliberately not only about salaried jobs.
What we would ask is that you talk it through with somebody before spending the capital, because the most common thing we see is a good idea that was started at three times the size it needed to be.
Questions people ask
Is a business better than a job?
It depends on what you need. A job gives reliable income, a payslip a landlord will accept and an employer who might act as guarantor. A trade starts sooner, bends around school and court dates, and needs no reference. Many women do both.
How much money do I need to start?
Usually far less than people assume, and the danger is starting too big rather than too small. Test with small quantities for a week before committing anything.
Should I take a loan to start?
Not to start something untested. Borrowing to expand a trade that already sells is reasonable. Be very careful with lending apps, which charge heavily and some of which message every contact in your phone.
My family keeps taking goods on credit. What do I do?
This is one of the two commonest ways a small trade fails. Separate the trading money from household money physically, and be immovable from the first week rather than trying to correct it later.
How do I know if I am actually making money?
One notebook, in and out, every day. Having money in your hand is not the same as making a profit, and stock that is not moving still looks like wealth.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
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- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
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- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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